News

PSU growing its campus community virtually and physically

Author: John Kirkland

Posted: April 8, 2011

(Portland, OR) April 8, 2011 -- Portland State University (PSU) this week added one more element in its growing campus community with PSU Chronicles, a blog billing itself as "the inside story" of campus life from three student bloggers.

The three are junior Atziri Sanchez, senior Richelle Beck, and freshman Kenny Katz, who are working the campus with smart phones, laptops and video cameras to capture the essence of PSU and keep the nearly 30,000-member student's on top of campus happenings. The blog, at http://psuchronicles.com went online Tuesday, April 4.

"If it takes off, it'll open people's eyes to different activities to be involved with at PSU and give a closer look as to what it's like to live on campus," Katz said. "I'm getting feedback, and it's all been positive."

Jackie Balzer, PSU's vice provost for student affairs, called PSU Chronicles "a wonderful addition to our campus-wide student success and community-building initiatives. Informing and connecting students via real life student stories on the new blog, in addition to the other social media activities, will help all students to succeed at PSU."

PSU Chronicles is another way for students to connect on campus. The others include:

Twitter. The University on April 4 held a "Tweetup" social event on campus that drew more than 200 Twitter users.

Facebook. PSU's started its "portlandstatefriends" Facebook page two years ago, and now has 6,511 fans.

YouTube. Nearly 70,000 people have viewed YouTube videos of the University.

Flickr. Another 64,500 people have viewed PSU photos on this popular site.

At the same time the University is growing its virtual community, it's also growing its real life community with a major drive to build more on-campus housing. Currently, 7.5 percent of PSU students live on campus. University President Wim Wiewel wants to boost that to 25 percent in the next five years.

"More people living on campus makes for a more viable and interesting campus community," Wiewel said.

Toward that end, PSU is building a new 1,000-bed residence hall, College Station, which is slated to open in time for the 2012 fall term.

To keep up on all things PSU, check out the following social media sites:

About Portland State University
Portland State University (PSU) serves as a center of opportunity for over 28,000 undergraduate and graduate students. Located in Portland, Oregon, one of the nations' most livable cities, the University's innovative approach to education combines academic rigor in the classroom with field-based experiences through internships and classroom projects with community partners. PSU's motto, "Let Knowledge Serve the City," inspires the teaching and research of an accomplished faculty whose work and students span the globe.